The best EA station in the U.S.???

[MoreTrout]

There is an EA station in a Walmart parking lot that is 116 miles from my house and 75 miles from camp, a route I take at least once and in season 2-3 times a month. While I don't have to stop, with EA's per min pricing it ends up being cheaper than my home utility rates of ~0.13 cents/kWh. I have successfully charged there several times with almost zero issues. The Taco Bell across the street is a bonus. Yesterday was interesting.

First the (only) bad. When I got there yesterday, the usual empty spots at both 350 kW units were occupied by a Mustang Mach E and a Kona, neither of which can charge faster than 150 kW. Sigh.

So at 10% I plugged into the #4 150 kW unit, connected in seconds through the app, and ramped to a peak of around 157 kW and maintained that until the normal tapering just above 50%. We weren't in a hurry anyway since we were going to have lunch and a grocery stop. I ended up getting all the way to 90% by the time we were done. Eating and shopping were time we would have spent anyway, so "my" time spent charging was roughly 30 seconds at most including the 5-10 seconds it took to open the app and swipe to start charging. Far less than it would have taken me to drive across the street and stand staring at a gas pump in the blistering cold winds. Because I went all the way to 90%, the per min pricing ended up a little higher at around 0.175 cents/kWh, but I'm not aware of any networks billing by kWh that come close to that. And the $4 monthly pass paid for itself yesterday saving me $5.25 on just this one session.

So both 350 kW units were online and working. At least one 150 kW unit was up and running. The other one showed a normal screen. I should have plugged in just to confirm it was operational, but from the looks of it I think it was. That would make 4/4 EA charging units up and running at this location. If that was true, the $3 bill in my pocket and the flock of pigs in flight overhead would have capped off a unique experience.

I know there are major issues with the CCS charging network in the U.S. that is still in its infancy. But sometimes the natural tendency of 90% of those that have problems will post about them and 90% of those that have success remain silent, I figured it was worth a minute or two to share a positive experience and point out that the sky isn't falling.

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[av8or]

A positive post! I too have been happy with EA! I’ve found a couple machines that didn’t work, but always able to charge. EA has failed to charge my card at a few stops, but that’s on them to figure out.

 

[EVTrukHog]

EA has failed to charge my card at a few stops, but that’s on them to figure out.

This is what gets me about EA! I only use EA about twice per month, but about every 4th charging session fails to charge my credit card. While this is great as a consumer, it makes me wonder how they're managing their business.

 

[Dark-Fx]

Why just come here and make up a story like that? We all know EA is the worst! Totally unrealistic that anyone would ever have such an experience!

 

[COdogman]

That’s how it’s supposed to work! (Except for the Taco Bell punishment )

 

[virgnia_rivian]

Last week we did our second road trip to South Carolina for a work trip. Once again every EA charge was a breeze. We used the EA stations in Emporia, VA (Wal Mart), Carolina Premium Outlets (NC) and on the way back Rocky Mount, NC and Richmond, VA. We used the app to activate every time. We saw good charging speeds, much faster than the ID4's, Lightings and MachEs we encountered.

I think some of the issues with EA are user error.

 

[jjswan33]

But I saw a post yesterday where someone used mostly EA to travel across the country and had to wait at one station so you know the experience was a nightmare.....

 

[jlstan]

I drove to Arkansas from NOVA and back in February (I-81 and I-40). EA all the way with zero trouble minus one throttled charger. Had a surprisingly good experience minus the fact that I am sooo tired of fricking WalMarts and blacktop wastelands

 

[WSea]

If this post is still the best EA station I vote for Kettleman City. I sure there are better ones that I haven't been to

 

[jjswan33]

If this post is still the best EA station I vote for Kettleman City. I sure there are better ones that I haven't been to

Personally I think it's hard to say which one is the best. I have been to several of the stations with the new hardware recently and they are great. The cables are super long which makes parking so much easier and so far in my experience they work perfectly.

 

[R1TJ]

We've driven up an down I-5 between Oregon and Washington in our ID.4 with very few issues using EA stations. Bonus - free charging for 3 years on the VW, although we mostly still charge at home out of convenience and trying to reduce wear and tear on the battery. Even with the ~250 mile range (220 is a more practical number at highway speeds), I find that I usually need a pit stop before the car does and the 20-30 minute charging session rarely slows us down by the time we find a restroom and stretch our legs. Our most frequent stops have been in Warrenton, OR and Lacey, WA. We also have a Telsa Tap and use destination chargers overnight at hotels. Looking forward to road tripping in my R1S s00n (aka in the next 9-15 months...)!

 

[CommodoreAmiga]

First the (only) bad. When I got there yesterday, the usual empty spots at both 350 kW units were occupied by a Mustang Mach E and a Kona, neither of which can charge faster than 150 kW. Sigh.

Honestly, I'm inclined to say that a R1T shouldn't take a 350kW pedestal, either, if a 150kW is available. We cap out around 220kW and can only hit that BRIEFLY when under IDEAL circumstances. I have consistently pulled 174kW on a "150kW" EA pedestal, and I think the real-world time-to-charge is near-as-makes-no-difference identical between properly functioning 150kW and 350kW EA pedestals.

 

[lefkonj]

Our trip to Boston (about 300 miles door to door and then 3 days of local college tours) had 3 EA stopes, all were really good and worked well. Even got 350kw stations all 3 times, the R1S hit 210 with no problems.

Now the EA station closer to home by the Freehold Mall in NJ is pathetic. The stations have been out of order for months and when you talk to people it has been that way since they were installed. I am sure this will get resolved but until then I will be going to the Walmart one since they seem to be more routinely monitored by EA.

 

[Indy avocado]

I know there are major issues with the CCS charging network in the U.S. that is still in its infancy. But sometimes the natural tendency of 90% of those that have problems will post about them and 90% of those that have success remain silent, I figured it was worth a minute or two to share a positive experience and point out that the sky isn't falling.

The EA station closest to me works great - 8 stalls, one has been offline for like 2-3 months, but otherwise plenty of capacity and no reduced rates.

Conversely, *literally* every other EA station I've been to has had reduced speeds and/or multiple chargers non-functional.

Charging the R1T at 33-60kw is an excruciatingly painful experience on a road trip. Even 90kw is pretty rough.

I don't know what to do, but EA (and EVgo, anyone else who received government money) needs to be punished if they can't provide >50% of their stated power and/or have people waiting in line because chargers are down. In many places near me, skipping a charger is *not* an option, so you're stuck charging for 50-90 minutes when you planned for a 15-30 minute stop. As a one-off, that seems like bad luck. But when you arrive at the next station and *it too* is down or slow, it's absolutely infuriating and potentially trip ruining.

 

[kylealden]

This is great and I certainly make it more often than not when depending on EA. A lot of trips would be impossible without their chargers.

At the same time, I almost got stranded yesterday because the EA station in Kelso was down to 2/4 chargers and there were four desparate vehicles waiting in line. If not for barely being able to limp to the EVGo Centralia charger, my trip would have been extended by hours. This is after spending two hours a few weeks ago trying to find a working fast charger for a ski trip the next day - I tried seven separate EA cabinets at two different locations before finding one that would hold a charge over 30kW.

So I'm not going to do any end zone dances on their behalf just yet - things are still getting worse (more demand per available charger) before they get better. We need to flip that. The expectation should be similar to RAN, which from anecdotes here and my experience is vanishingly close to 100% runtime and availability, versus maybe 50-75% for EA (on a per-charger basis).

(On variability... My local EVGo is the "best EVGo" in the same way this thread is describing - consistent 212kW charging all the way to 50+%, zero issues in >six months of usage, and with per-min pricing turning out to <$0.09 per kwH for a 70% charge, it's around half the price of home charging. Meanwhile my local EA stations have a per-charger failure rate around 75-80%.)

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